Charlotte messenger. [volume] (Charlotte, Mecklenburg Co., N.C.) 1882-18??, 1887-08-27
THE REV. DR.. TALMAGE.
TIE BROOKLYN DIvINE'S SUNDAY
SERMON.
Subject. "Employments Of Hoa ven.

TEXT: "NoiU 10 came to pass IN the thtr
tieth year, in the fourth month, In the gtth
day Of the month, as Itcds among the cap
tires by the river of Chebdr, that the heavens
srcre opened" Ezekiel l.. l.
Ezekiel, with others, had been expatriated,
and while in foreign slavery was standing on
the banks of the royal canal which he and
other serfs had been condemned to dig by the
order of Nebuchadnezzar-th royal canal,
in the text, called the river of Chebar; the
illustrious exile had visions of Heaven. In
deed it is almost always so that the brightest
visions of heaven come not to those who are
on mountain tops of prosperity, but to some
John ON desOlate Patmos or to some Paul III
Mamertine dungeon, or to some Ezekiel
standing on the banks of a ditch he has been
compelled to dig-yea, to the weary, to the
heart broken, to those whom sorrow has ban
ished.
The text is very particular to give us the
exact time of the vision. Il was in the thir-
tieth year, and in tho fourth month, and in
the fifth day of the month. So you have had
visions of earth you shall never forget. You
remember the veal, you remember the month,
you remember the day, you remember the
hour. Why may not we have some such
ision this morning, and it be in the sixth
month, and in the fourth day Of the month!
The question is often silently asked, though
perhaps never audibly propounded: What
are our departed Christian friends doing
Than you might perhaps suppose. Though
there has come no recent intelligence from
The heavenly city, and we seem dependent
upon the story of eighteen centuries ago, still
Think we may from strongest inference de-
eide what are the present occupations Of our
transferred kinsfolk.
After God has made nature he never
cradicates the chief characteristics Of its
temperament. You never knew man
phlegmatic in temperament to become sall-
guine in temperament You never knew
man sanguine in temperament to become
phlegmatic in temperament. Conversion
plants new principles in the soui, but Paul
and John are just as different from each
other after conversion as they were different
from each other before conversion. III con-
version does not eradicate the prominent
characteristics of the temperament neither
will death eradicate them.
You have, then, only by sum in subtrac-
ton and sum in addition TO decide what are
the employments of your departed friends in
the better world. You are to subtract from
them all earthly groSsness and add all earthly
goodness, and then you are to come to the
conclusion that they are doing now in heaven
what in their best moments they did on earth.
Thereason that SO many people never start for
heaven is because they could not stand 1T IL
they got there if it should turn out to be the
rigid and formal place some people photo
graph it.
We like to come to church, but we would
not want to stay here till next Christmas.
We like to hear the Hallelujah Chorus, but
we would not want to hear it all the time for
fifty centuries. 1t might be on some great
occasion it would be possibly comfortable to
wear crown of gold weighing several
pounds, but it would be an affection to wear
such a crown forever. In other words, We
run the descriptions of Heaven into the
groundwhile we make that which was in
ha
exclusive employment of Heaven. You
might as well, if asked to describe the habits
of American society, describe a Decoration
Day, or a Fourth of July, or an autumnal
Thanksgiving as though it were all the time
that way.
lam not going to speculate in regard to the
future world, but / must by inevitable laws
Of inference and deduction and common
sense conclude that in Heaven we will be just
as different from each other MS we nre now
different, and hence that there will be at
least as many different employnents in the
celestial world as there are employnents
here Christ is to be the great love, the
great joy, the greatrapture, the great worship
Of Heaven; but will that abolish employmentf
No more than loves on earth-paternai,
filial, fraternal, conjugal love-aboiish earthly
occupation.
In the first place, remark that all those IT
cur departed Christian friends who on eartI
dulging their tastes in the same direction On
earth they had their glaiidest pleasures amid
pictures and statuary and in the study of the
laws of light and shade and perspective.
Have you any idea that that afiiuence OF
faculty at death collapsed and perisheds
Why so, when there is more for them to look
ut, md they have keener appreciation OF the
beautiful, and they stand amid the very
loons where the sunsets and the rainboNs
and the spring mornings are wovenl
Are you so obtuse as to suppose that because
the painter drops his easel and the sculptor
lis chisel and the engraver his knife. that
therefore that taste, which he was charging
and intensifying for forty or fifty years. is
entirely obliterateda These artists, or these
friends of art, on earth worked in coarse
material and with imperfect brain and with
frail hand. Now they have carried their art
into larger liberties and into wider crcum-
ference They are at their old business vet,
but without the fatigues, without the liuita-
TONS without the hindrances of the terres-
trial studio
Raphael could now improve unon his mas
ferpiece of Michael the Archangel now
that he has seen him, and could improve upon
his masterpiece of the Holy Family now that
he has visited them. Michael Angelo could
better present the Last Judgment after he has
seen its flash and BEARD the rumbling batter
ing rams of its thunder. Exquisite colors
here, graceful lines here, powerful cbiaros-
euro here; but am persuaded that the gran
der studios and the brighter galleries are
higher up by the winding marble stairs
Of the sepulchre, and that Turner. and Hol-
man, end Hunt, and Rembrandt, and Titan,
and Paul Veronese, if they exercised saving
faith in the Christ whom they portrayed up
on the canvas are painters vet but their
strength of faculty multiplied ten thousand
fold. The reason that God took away their
eye and their hand, and their brain was that
he might give them something more timber,
more wieldly, more skilful, more multiple
fant
Do not, therefore, be melancholy among
the tapestries, and the brio n-bric, and tho
enhroideries, and the water colors. and the
works Of art which your departed friends
used to admire. DO not say: II am sorry
they had TO leave all these things" Rather
fny: "Iam glad they have gone up to higher
artistic opportunity and appreciation Our
friends who found so much Joy in the fine
arts on earth are now luxuriating in I1ouvrcs
and Luxembourgs celestial
] remark again, that all our departed
Christian friends who in this world were
passionately fond Of music are still regaling
that taste in the world celestial. The Bible
says so much about the music Of Heaven
that it cannot all be fgurative Tho Bible
over and over again speaks of the songs Of
Heaven IL Heaven had no songs Of its own
vast number Of those Of earth would have